Details About the 2016 Ski for Light International Week

The 2016 Event Dates and Program Schedule

The 2016 Ski for Light International Week will be held from Sunday evening, January 24 through Saturday morning, January 30, 2016. First- and second-year guides will need to arrive one day early, by Saturday afternoon January 23, for guide orientation and training.

Please be aware that:

The traditional Sunday to Sunday seven-day SFL week has been shortened to a Sunday to Saturday six-day event for 2016.

The week has been shortened for 2016 because trail congestion at Shanty Creek Resorts on weekends makes it unwise and unsafe to attempt to hold the race and rally on the usual Saturday, hence the race and rally will be held on Friday in 2016. This allows the week to be shortened by one day, with Saturday departure, as a test of whether or not a shorter event week, with the corresponding lower cost for the week, would be preferable for most participants. This is a one year test, to be thoroughly evaluated after the end of the 2016 event.

While the formal SFL week will conclude on Saturday morning, some attendees may
choose to stay over one or more additional days. The hotel is holding a block of rooms, at
our event rate, for Saturday night. All of the resort's facilities, cross-country
skiing, downhill skiing, snowshoeing and tubing, will be available to those staying over. In
addition, those staying over could take advantage of additional activities such as sleigh rides, dog-sled rides and
snowmobiling that are only available at Shanty Creek Resorts on Saturdays. Those staying over will be responsible for arranging their
activities and all costs associated with the additional time including room (to be added to your SFL bill), meals, activities,
and transportation to their departing airport.

The Location

The 2016 Ski for Light event will be held on the grounds of Shanty Creek Resorts in
Bellaire, Michigan. Bellaire is located in Northwest Lower Michigan, 40 miles from Traverse City, 100 miles south of the Upper Peninsula, and 250 miles north
of Detroit. View or download a map showing the location of Shanty Creek Resorts

Getting to Bellaire

Unless you will be driving to Bellaire, you will want to fly into either the Traverse City airport or the Grand Rapids airport for your trip to Ski for Light. Traverse City is 40 miles from Shanty Creek Resorts, while Grand Rapids is 160 miles away. Traverse City is certainly a closer airport, but Grand Rapids is a larger airport, with mor flight options for your trip. Free shuttle bus service will be provided by SFL from and to both airports, on designated days and at designated times. Please read the 2016 Arrival and Departure Information page carefully before making your travel plans.

Our hotel for the week will be the Lakeview Hotel and Conference Center in Summit Village. situated atop Summit Mountain overlooking Lake Bellaire
and the slopes of Summit Mountain, the Lakeview has 183 classically
appointed guest rooms, a full-service restaurant, lounge and bar, over 12,000 square feet of
flexible meeting and event space, indoor and outdoor pools, and a 3,000 square foot
fitness
center and spa. Here are photos and videos of many of Shanty Creek's facilities and amenities.

In the unlikely event that you run out of things to do at Shanty Creek Resorts, the town of Bellaire contains several restaurants and the lively and popular Short's brew pub The resort shuttle will take you, on an on-call basis, the four miles into town and then pick you up later in the evening.

Cross-Country Skiing

The trails that we will ski at Shanty Creek Resorts in 2016 will offer a quality ski
experience for everybody. The 5 kilometer course will be gently rolling.
It will be an enjoyable, welcoming trail for beginners as well as a place
for experienced skiers to improve their skills. The 10 kilometer trail
will incorporate more hills and a bit more challenge for those looking
for that.

These trails will differ significantly from those that we skied at the
Shanty Creek resorts when SFL was last there in 2013. These changes
are due in part to changes at the resort and also due to our desire
to offer a different skiing experience. Many found the 2013 trails to be
a little too challenging.

The resort has changed much of the indoor spaces at the Cedar
River Village that we used as a trailhead and lunch facility then.
Where we ate lunch and stored skis is now part of the large resort-wide
ski rental shop for both downhill and cross-country. Many of the trails
that we skied are now dedicated to snowshoeing and fat tire (snow)
bikes.

SFL will be using the nearby Schuss Village at Shanty Creek as
our trailhead and lunch spot. The terrain south of the Schuss Village
trailhead traversed by the resort's 5K Pine Cone Trail is
gently rolling and suited to our needs. The 10K will utilize much of the
Pine Cone Trail with additional segments providing more hills.

As always, the SFL 5 and 10 kilometer trails will be well-marked in 2016. While our two trails will not exactly correspond to any of the trails indicated on the Shanty Creek Trail Map you may find it imformative to examine the map of the entire trail system for perspective.

Meals During The Week

At Ski for Light all meals are group meals, meaning meals with a fixed
menu and in a location apart from other guests, as follows:

Breakfast from Monday through Friday is a "distributed buffet",
which means a number of items pre-set on each table, such as hard
boiled eggs, yogurt, granola and so forth, for those desiring a lighter
breakfast, and two to four hot food stations that offer items such as
scrambled eggs, oatmeal or cream of wheat, which rotate
from day to day. Breakfast on Saturday is a continental
breakfast.

Lunch each day is a buffet at Eivan's Cafe in Schuss Village, near the ski trails. The
buffet includes hot entrees, sandwiches, soup and similar items.

Dinner each evening is a served, plated meal. SFL strives to provide a healthy, balanced diet that is high in
complex carbohydrates derived from fresh fruits and vegetables, whole
grains and dairy products and low in fat. The only two dinner meal plans that are available for the week are the Standard menu plan, which includes red meat, poultry and fish, and the Pescatarian menu plan, which includes eggs, dairy products and fish
as well as other sources of protein (legumes and soy) but
no red meat or poultry. Attendees must choose one menu plan for the entire week, with their choice noted to the wait staff by the color of the name tag that they must wear at dinners.

Those wishing an alternative menu for dinner will
need to provide their own supplements.

Cost For The Week

The total cost of the week is $790 for double-occupancy or $1,140 for
single-occupancy. This amount includes room and all meals from Sunday evening January 24 through Saturday morning January 30, round-trip transportation between the Traverse City or Grand Rapids airports and Shanty Creek Resorts, (at designated times on specific days), round-trip transportation between the hotel and ski area each day, all trail fees, and all afternoon and evening programs and activities. Cross-country skis,
boots, and poles will be provided free of charge to first-time blind/visually-impaired participants.
The cost of transportation from home to and from Traverse City or Grand Rapids is the
responsibility of the participant.

Partial stipends based on financial need are available for
guides and first-time and second-time visually- or mobility-impaired participants.

Full payment is due from all accepted applicants by December 1, 2015.

Application Deadline and Acceptance to the Week

Applications for SFL 2016 will be accepted until at least November 1,
2015. The number of visually- and mobility-impaired participants who
can ultimately be accepted to attend the event will depend on the
number of guides who will be attending. For this reason, not all
applications can be accepted immediately. In order to give applicants
as much advance notice of acceptance as possible, without risking that
the final numbers of guides versus disabled participants are out of
balance, the following guidelines will be followed.

Guide applicants will be notified within two weeks about acceptance to
the event.

First-time visually- and mobility-impaired applicants will be notified
within two weeks about acceptance to the event.

All other applicants will be notified about their acceptance status as
soon as possible after their application is received but no later than the
end of October.

Applicants who apply after November 1 will be accepted only if space
permits, with priority given to first-time visually- and mobility-impaired
applicants.

No Physical Exam Is Required

Each applicant is expected to make
his/her own informed decision about the advisability of participation,
taking into account his/her individual overall health and the physical
demands and risks of cross-country skiing and of the Ski for Light program.

Application Forms

Please read the Frequently Asked Questions carefully, as they include much information that is specific to the 2016 event. Then proceed to complete and submit your Application form. We look forward to seeing you in Michigan.

Information and Forms for Accepted Applicants

If you have been notified by your applications coordinator that you have been accepted as an attendee for the 2016 event, you can take care of a number of items related to your attendance on the Information and Forms for Accepted Applicants page. You can make your payment online with your credit card, sign up to lead a Special-Interest session, and let us know how and when you will be arriving in Michigan.

Additional Information and Resources for Attendees

The Ski for Light Guide Handbook is available for
reading or downloading at www.sfl.org/event/sflguidehandbook14.pdf. The twenty-four page booklet contains a wealth of general skiing tips,
SFL-specific terminology,
a standard progression of instruction for beginners, and other information to help
new guides approach their first event with confidence, and to help everyone ski together
more safely and enjoyably.